Israeli assassination squad kills 10-year old girl in Bethlehem

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday March 26, 2003 12:53 by kokomero

Doctrine of premption fails again

An Israeli undercover unit has shot dead a 10-year-old Palestinian girl and wounded her parents and 15-year-old sister in Bethlehem by firing indiscriminately at civilians during failed assassination attempt.

Girl killed in Bethlehem battle

The battle breaks a comparative lull in the conflict
An Israeli undercover unit has shot dead a 10-year-old Palestinian girl and wounded her parents and 15-year-old sister in Bethlehem in what a military source said was a tragic accident.
Israeli radio said the troops had been trying to arrest suspected Hamas militants in the West Bank town on Tuesday evening when the suspects opened fire from their car.

They had fired back, killing three men, when the car carrying Christine Shehadeh and her family appeared on the scene and the soldiers opened fire on it, believing they were under attack.

Palestinian sources accused the troops of killing innocent civilians and firing indiscriminately.

"An army unit went on an arrest operation but before they did anything they were fired on from a car and a gun battle ensued," an unnamed Israeli military source told Reuters news agency.

"It appears another vehicle entered the area at the time and was shot at. A tragic turn of events took place in the battle initiated by the terrorists in the midst of the town centre."

The mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser, said that the surviving members of the Shehadeh family were all taken to hospital with wounds.

Boy shot dead

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the three men killed in the attack were all "civilians" and it said that the troops had removed two of the bodies.

It named one of the dead men as 40-year-old Muwaffaq Abd-al-Razzaq Muhammad Badran from the al-Jadwal area.

Palestinian witnesses to the attack told Reuters that the undercover troops had fired wildly at the second car.

Correspondents say that there had been a comparative lull in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians since the war in Iraq began.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy and seriously wounded a 12-year-old in the West Bank town of Jenin after they climbed onto an armoured vehicle and tried to seize a machine gun.

And in the Gaza Strip, Jewish settlers reported that troops had opened fire on two intruders at the settlement of Morag.

The settlers said the troops had sealed off the area but there appeared to be one body on the ground.